EQ TLP - Mischief (Free Trade / Random Loot)

Edaw

Parody
<Gold Donor>
13,175
87,201
If I was pitching ideas for improving retention on Mischief style servers I'd go with a removal/reduction of recommended levels and required levels on items. Just take rec off of everything and lower requireds by five or ten across the board.
Make everything All/All.
 

DickTrickle

Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
13,387
15,530
Make everything All/All.

That sounds somewhat fun but it creates some real stupidity too. Every expansion knight swords will be BiS for all melee who can wield them. I don't know that I can get behind that kind of meta.
 

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
28,694
77,949
That sounds somewhat fun but it creates some real stupidity too. Every expansion knight swords will be BiS for all melee who can wield them. I don't know that I can get behind that kind of meta.

Just making everything all/all would be too much but you could introduce foil/golden/whatever versions of raid loot that were flagged all/all. Each time you kill a boss there's a chance one of the items on its loot table is tradeable and usuable by any race/class.
 
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Elderan

Blackwing Lair Raider
619
462
Yea I just wanted to see him elaborate on his reasons others would leave. I completely understand his reasoning for wanting to ditch.

Don't get me wrong. I think a Mangler clone will be "less" successful than Mischief/Thornblade was. The consensus for a while now has been almost any ruleset released next (assumption its not free trade) would be a massive dud. My comment was basically asserting that I think the next server wont be as bad of a dud as most of us including me thought a few months ago.

There are multiple reasons for this but the main reason is just tracking active population. Less people are playing on Mischief and Thornblade combined today than were on Mangler at a comparable time. I think this is primarily because of how easy loot is to get. A casual player can get bis or close to it much quicker on these servers and many of those take a break or play less until the next expansion or just dont return.

If you feed a man a steak once a week he will always crave more. If you feed him steak 3 times a day he will eventually get tired of it. This server is in loot overload and while it does feel good at first each cycle it feels less and less and casuals generally will get their fill sooner and just stop playing sooner than normal or less than normal.
 

Elderan

Blackwing Lair Raider
619
462
This.

I think a LOT of people's eyes were opened on how much they love something they never really thought they wanted/EQ needed. Sure, the dupe really fucked up the economy for a bit, but prices have been pretty stable now for a few weeks. And sure, "stability" is basically items that sell for either 1000p or 500,000plat, with very little in-between, but this server's economy was always going to be wonky with free-trade.

Its not over, they are still buying 80+ krono every day. Prices are only somewhat stable because of the large amounts of krono. Towards the last 3-4 weeks of the expansion krono starts to dwindle and as they buy up more the prices are going to skyrocket again. I fully expect krono to be 250k per by PoP.

Also keep in mind this person did not buy ANY krono from Oct 30th to Nov 4th for some reason.
 

Vlett

Lord Nagafen Raider
817
69
Its not over, they are still buying 80+ krono every day. Prices are only somewhat stable because of the large amounts of krono. Towards the last 3-4 weeks of the expansion krono starts to dwindle and as they buy up more the prices are going to skyrocket again. I fully expect krono to be 250k per by PoP.

Also keep in mind this person did not buy ANY krono from Oct 30th to Nov 4th for some reason.

Which is funny. All the guys I knew straight selling have pretty much bowed off the server.
 

Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,891
4,727
It will be interesting to see how four months of PoP combined with 2-4x loot and the “Crown of Retirement” effect should impact the population. In theory it should decimate the population.
 

Elderan

Blackwing Lair Raider
619
462
It will be interesting to see how four months of PoP combined with 2-4x loot and the “Crown of Retirement” effect should impact the population. In theory it should decimate the population.

I agree, 4 months is an eternity for people on this server.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
19,218
15,612
It will be interesting to see how four months of PoP combined with 2-4x loot and the “Crown of Retirement” effect should impact the population. In theory it should decimate the population.
Isn't it only 3? Or are we essentially including LDoN into that 4?

What is the "Crown of Retirement" effect?
 

Zaide

TLP Idealist
3,891
4,727
Isn't it only 3? Or are we essentially including LDoN into that 4?

What is the "Crown of Retirement" effect?
Yeah LDoN month is just more PoTime farming.

Crown of Retirement is when you get that item you’ve been lusting after for a while and now that the goal is achieved you retire. It’s name is a reference to the Crown of Rile in Kunark where it was common to see people quit the week after getting one on Lockjaw and like P99 blue which both had a long window of Kunark.
 
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sukik

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
3,175
8,257
My goal is to see every expac to live, and this server's ruleset seems like the best way to do it. It really beats back tracking through old content on my own with a box crew. It may drag a little here and there, but I can't poopsock games like I used to anyway. I appreciate the time folks put in to running progression guilds, because good organization takes time and energy.
 
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Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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My goal is to see every expac to live, and this server's ruleset seems like the best way to do it. It really beats back tracking through old content on my own with a box crew. It may drag a little here and there, but I can't poopsock games like I used to anyway. I appreciate the time folks put in to running progression guilds, because good organization takes time and energy.
Same here. I never spent much time past GoD, so I really want to see it through this time and Mischief's loot rules are exactly what I needed to keep boredom from tiring me out. I started about 3 days after Kunark release and other than a brief break for a week or two in Velious (I really hate that expac), I've been enjoying this the whole time.
 

sukik

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
3,175
8,257
Same here. I never spent much time past GoD, so I really want to see it through this time and Mischief's loot rules are exactly what I needed to keep boredom from tiring me out. I started about 3 days after Kunark release and other than a brief break for a week or two in Velious (I really hate that expac), I've been enjoying this the whole time.
I couldn't even get into vanilla-kunark this time. I've been enjoying my time with the faceless crew. The schedule fits my play time. My only problem now is it's hard to feel like I'm making progress outside raids. Aa's are so slow, and I really don't care for to two good xp zones in this expansion (Griegs and velks). Things should get better next month when I move, and I'm not stuck on potato internet. I'll probably miss most of the pop launch due to moving, but sounds like I'll have lots of opportunity to catch up.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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I couldn't even get into vanilla-kunark this time. I've been enjoying my time with the faceless crew. The schedule fits my play time. My only problem now is it's hard to feel like I'm making progress outside raids. Aa's are so slow, and I really don't care for to two good xp zones in this expansion (Griegs and velks). Things should get better next month when I move, and I'm not stuck on potato internet. I'll probably miss most of the pop launch due to moving, but sounds like I'll have lots of opportunity to catch up.
Yeah, AA farming was always rough in Luclin, even back "in the day". I think I entered PoP with like 40 or 50aas max back on my mage on EMarr. Not only are the zones boring (Velks is old as shit by this point and Grieg's is literally the WoW meme of "hallway, boss, hallway" personified), but most of the "good" spots only support 1 group max. Inner AC? 1 group. IC/OC? 1 group. Gate? 1 group. And if more than 1 group tries to push into those areas, it makes already slow AA exp slower.

PoP alleviates a ton of that. Not only because the ZEMs are better, but also higher level mobs, more zones to farm, etc. I'm actually MOST looking forward to LDoN. I know it's an expansion most people hate and it isn't the greatest for farming AA, but I really love having my own "instance" to take my box crew, especially since you can do it for a massive level range.
 

Pharone

Trakanon Raider
1,258
1,115
Yeah, AA farming was always rough in Luclin, even back "in the day". I think I entered PoP with like 40 or 50aas max back on my mage on EMarr. Not only are the zones boring (Velks is old as shit by this point and Grieg's is literally the WoW meme of "hallway, boss, hallway" personified), but most of the "good" spots only support 1 group max. Inner AC? 1 group. IC/OC? 1 group. Gate? 1 group. And if more than 1 group tries to push into those areas, it makes already slow AA exp slower.

PoP alleviates a ton of that. Not only because the ZEMs are better, but also higher level mobs, more zones to farm, etc. I'm actually MOST looking forward to LDoN. I know it's an expansion most people hate and it isn't the greatest for farming AA, but I really love having my own "instance" to take my box crew, especially since you can do it for a massive level range.
I have two main reasons that I hate LDoN... Dungeon Crawl and Chucky Cheese prize booth.

First off, I really dislike dungeon crawls. I prefer sitting in one "camp" and killing mobs. The traditional old school EQ grind isn't for everyone, but it is what I like to do when I play EverQuest. I have numerous other games I play when I want to crawl a dungeon. To me, EQ is about grinding mobs in a camp and socializing with your group members. LDoN destroys that completely.

Secondly, I hate hate hate hate HATE the Chucky Cheese prize booth game design that LDoN introduced to the industry. It's lazy game design that makes dungeons irrelevant and lack luster. WoW took the idea of "run through dungeon, kill boss, collect points, spend points for gear at the prize booth back in town" to the next level of stupid, but EverQuest gets credit for introducing the idea in LDoN. LDoN"s Chucky Cheese prize booth design was the begining of the end for traditional MMORPGs that had meaningful dungeon design with rare mobs and rare loot.

LDoN could have been a great thing IF they would have made large meaningful dungeons with rare mobs that drop rare and extremely-rare chase loot that had camps and respawning. That way, your group could get their own instance of said dungeon, and camp it for x number of hours. That would have been great. Instead they got private instances with no respawning mobs, forced dungeon crawling, and lack luster rare mobs because the real loot was obtained by collecting points for doing the instance runs and using those points back in town at the prize booth for gear. Seriously. LDoN was the downfall of the MMORPG industry.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
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15,612
I have two main reasons that I hate LDoN... Dungeon Crawl and Chucky Cheese prize booth.

First off, I really dislike dungeon crawls. I prefer sitting in one "camp" and killing mobs. The traditional old school EQ grind isn't for everyone, but it is what I like to do when I play EverQuest. I have numerous other games I play when I want to crawl a dungeon. To me, EQ is about grinding mobs in a camp and socializing with your group members. LDoN destroys that completely.

Secondly, I hate hate hate hate HATE the Chucky Cheese prize booth game design that LDoN introduced to the industry. It's lazy game design that makes dungeons irrelevant and lack luster. WoW took the idea of "run through dungeon, kill boss, collect points, spend points for gear at the prize booth back in town" to the next level of stupid, but EverQuest gets credit for introducing the idea in LDoN. LDoN"s Chucky Cheese prize booth design was the begining of the end for traditional MMORPGs that had meaningful dungeon design with rare mobs and rare loot.

LDoN could have been a great thing IF they would have made large meaningful dungeons with rare mobs that drop rare and extremely-rare chase loot that had camps and respawning. That way, your group could get their own instance of said dungeon, and camp it for x number of hours. That would have been great. Instead they got private instances with no respawning mobs, forced dungeon crawling, and lack luster rare mobs because the real loot was obtained by collecting points for doing the instance runs and using those points back in town at the prize booth for gear. Seriously. LDoN was the downfall of the MMORPG industry.
Eh, it's a matter of opinion/personal preference.

Don't get me wrong, I've spent probably 70+ hours in various camps in OS on Mischief (I LOVE that dungeon - it and Plane of Nightmare are probably my two favorite zones all-time). I could pull Juggs for decades and be happy as hell just listening to some tunes, chatting with folks, etc. However, I also really enjoy the concept and feeling of a "crawl" occasionally too. Even back during "classic", the excitement of "crawling" Blackburrow, Paw, etc. was just as fun to me as camping Efreeti for 10 hour sessions. Do I want to do it all the time? No, definitely not. But, it's nice to have the option when I need a change of scenery/pace.

Additionally, I'm REALLY big on ease of access (it's part of why I liked PoP so much - books were one of the greatest things EQ designers ever added IMO). Traveling just isn't exciting in most games (I've had some fun with it in some survival style games) and MMORPGs have failed every attempt at making it such. So, the ability to level up some alts from 20-70 is extremely appealing when it means I don't have to gate, ask for ports, travel to dungeon, travel to camp, etc. every 5 or so levels because I'm outpacing the dungeon.

Granted, it's less of a problem once you start getting into the 40+ range and levels start to "slowdown" a bit, but I like having an "all-in-one" style. Again, do I want that all the time? Certainly not. But, for menial shit like leveling alts? Absolutely I do.
 

Greyman

Trakanon Raider
712
953
Yeah AA grinding in Luclin was rough unless you had the ability to take part in Deep AoE groups regularly or had good OC/IC groups with a charmed hunter or 2.

Everybody was like, gotta buy all your AA and bank 120 for PoP, but by the time I got to like 100 I'd had enough and just waited until PoP, shit goes 5x faster once you get access to elemental planes.
 
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